So, what was actually wrong the ending to Mass Effect 3? As a final act, it was flawed in two distinct ways. Firstly, it was bad in the conventional way that endings are often bad: it was abrupt, plot-holed, and dramatically unsatisfying. The kind of badness you might expect from a suddenly cancelled TV show that had a season’s worth of plot arcs to tidy up and 42 minutes of screen time with which to do it. Secondly, Mass Effect 3&prime;s ending was bad in a way unique to the series: it didn’t offer players a sense of meaningful choice, or the feeling decisions made over three game’s worth of galactic adventuring had actually mattered, in direct contradiction to what Hudson and other members of the team had promised. If BioWare had avoided one of these issues, they probably could have gotten away with the other. They didn’t of course, and inside the slow-cooker forum threads bubbling with resentment, the Retake Mass Effect campaign took shape.

They had valid complaints. Mass Effect 3&prime;s ending was really weird, but demanding a new ending from Bioware and then writing one for them perhaps went a little too far. “Fans of the Mass Effect trilogy have put far too much time, effort, and money into the game to be abandoned with such a fate,” the group insisted.
“Bioware desperately needs to resolve this issue. New DLC (something long) to add a new, more satisfactory ending to the game, or even a full expansion based as an epilogue to the trilogy.
“Some possible ideas include Shepard retiring or settling down with his/her love interest, returning to work as a Council SPECTRE, or traveling the galaxy as an inter-species diplomat.”

I won't post it separately but PC Gamer's second controversy is Diablo III's Error 37.

It's probably GOTY for me too. Either that or Risen 2, both of which are flawed in their own way. There were no games in 2012 that blew me away, such as Skyrim (2011) and Fallout: New Vegas (2010). Otherwise, the ending alone would've excluded ME3.

And no, I don't consider BG: EE a "new" game, so it's not a contestant.

Though I haven't personally experienced the ending of Mass Effect 3 - I find it surprising that it's being singled out as the main problem with the game. I thought the main problem was that it was a rushed and soulless piece of crap

Originally Posted by Maylander
There were no games in 2012 that blew me away

Grimrock.

— Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind. - John F Kennedy
An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world is blind. - Mahatma Gandhi
The world is my country. To do good is my religion. My mind is my own church. This simple creed is all we need to enjoy peace on earth. - Thomas Paine

I never reached the end of ME3….just didn't have any interest. Barring the occasional exception (like a mini-platform type encounter with a Reaper etc) the gameplay was dull/samey. That's not to say the story was terrible, but I simply lost interest about 70% in…it's still on my desktop and I look at it now and then, but will not replay it for a long time.

On another note: playing through Game of Thrones RPG and actually enjoying it (although combat camera is absolute shit and the lack of a zoom means that you are often blind…) but I like the story and the two-player narrative. I do not think it is as bad as reviewers claim.

— “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

Originally Posted by booboo
On another note: playing through Game of Thrones RPG and actually enjoying it (although combat camera is absolute shit and the lack of a zoom means that you are often blind…) but I like the story and the two-player narrative. I do not think it is as bad as reviewers claim.

Exactly - great story, nice choices and consequences, pause and play combat - but the camera prevents it from being as tactical as it could have been. Now in the way of side effects, I got hooked on the TV series and books…

Guys, one of the characters in GoT RPG was Martin himself. That busted the game for me, I despise his neverending saga strategy that's just a milk-the-cash scheme where he'll die before finishing the whole thing.

Apart from that GoT RPG was definetly not as bad as critics suggested, but is it really a GOTY material? Nah.

My main issue with Game of Thrones is that I'm tired of A Song Of Ice And Fire as a whole. I was pretty much hooked until (major spoiler):

Spoiler

Jon Snow got killed. Or at least most likely killed. At that point I realized every single character I care about in the series is now actually dead. Daenerys and Tyrion are somewhat interesting, but every other plot now includes a whole bunch of people that are completely uninteresting to me. Some prince pops up out of nowhere alongside some old Hand to a long dead king? Fine. Don't care. He's probably dead in a few chapters anyway.

Anyway, I'll read book 6 when it comes, but other than that my interest level will remain low unless something spectacular happens.

Other than GoT, I also played the rather similar Of Orcs And Men, Diablo 3 and a few other new games, but nothing I was too impressed by. I mostly favor games that have a lot of RPG elements, so games like D3 and Dishonored don't actually stand much of a chance as GOTYs for me. I can't even remember the last time a non-RPG was GOTY, probably Warcraft 3 or Civilization 2 or some such thing. Transport Tycoon Deluxe back in 95 maybe?

Edit: I actually looked it up. Warcraft 3 was released in 2002, same year as Morrowind, so Morrowind is the clear winner. TTD was indeed released in 95, but the actual Transport Tycoon was released in 94, so I guess GOTY 95 was the original Command & Conquer for me. So it's 17 years ago. Not bad.

to make discussion more humorous;
from Edge about the change bioware did after fans rage:
"it’s worth remembering a simple fact: it worked. The fans took back Mass Effect, and got the ending they wanted,"

I stopped reading GoT at the same point Maylander apparently did and pretty much for the same reasons.

OT I liked the ME games for what they were. Not my usual style in any way but I had a lot of fun playing. I wasn't thrilled with the ending but I enjoyed the other 99% of my time so considered it worth it.

— Character is centrality, the impossibility of being displaced or overset. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Originally Posted by JDR13
Dishonored would probably be my GOTY if I had to pick one.

Mine too. The game borrows the best bits from several great games and makes the pieces fit together so that the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. It's amazingly consistent. I particularly like the visual design, the way the world looks like an oil painting most of the time. Few games give the player as much freedom to explore and experiment as Dishonored, and it's not even an open world game. I also love that it's an assassin game you can play through without killing anybody. Now, who would have thought of that?

As for Mass Effect 3, I haven't played it yet, though I did enjoy the previous games in the series. Not likely that I will get around to it either, with so many exciting kickstarters on the horizon.

Originally Posted by joxer
Guys, one of the characters in GoT RPG was Martin himself. That busted the game for me, I despise his neverending saga strategy that's just a milk-the-cash scheme where he'll die before finishing the whole thing.

Apart from that GoT RPG was definetly not as bad as critics suggested, but is it really a GOTY material? Nah.

How is it a milk the cash? Seriously, some of this stuff you post is so out to lunch.

I tend to be very extreme.
Which doesn't mean I'm wrong when saying Martin, after the initial success of a book that was supposed to be a part of a TRILOGY (that's two more books, three in total, and no games, movies, series and whatsoever) designed his GoT saga as a milking cow. I respect his success, but I'll never say he didn't stretch the thing just to milk more and more money. Serieously, do you really believe he opted to make more books and sold rights just because he cares for fans?

Do you think anyone selling their books do it just for their fans? I never get it when people say they quit with something because so and so did something they didn't want to happen in the books. Personally I'm glad it was more then three books…there is so much story there, granted the book before the last one was a bit dry but the latest book was awesome. Looking forward to more, unfortunately he is involved in so much getting the actual books out take longer.

Yeah, he's terribly busy editing mostly irrelevant novel collections/anthologies of other people, watching NFL and soaking in the worship of his fans in the most disgusting ways possible at cons and conferences. In the meantime, his employees are busy with making critical or politely questioning posts disappear from his official page and forum. Pathetic.

Mind you, I'm in love with his work, can't stop reading it, and I appreciate his formula, but the Great Bearded Glacier has turned this franchise and literary work into something… less (for me at least, and quite a few others). Half of the shit happening after Storm of Swords is complete filling material, everyone who has some experience in writing fiction can see it plainly.

Oh and just for the record, he said a few months ago, that all things added up he now needs about 5-6 years to finish the next novel. That's just plain silly.